Perfect Forms

I've heard so many reactions to the current exhibition, no. 1-60. Some people are struck by the mortality evoked by the piece; others its testament to the life of the tree. Formally, it has been compared to a hanging carcass, a dinosaur skeleton and an undersea creature (my first thought was a petrified shish kabob - probably the least eloquent of the lot).

I've always thought of art as existing on a spiritual, metaphysical plane, and we have to lower it from its naturally elevated position in order to understand it. Like one of Plato's perfect forms zipped into a palpable material. Something is always lost in translation, but much more is gained from the diverse ways in which people apprehend the work...

That said, a question has occurred to me: if a completely different piece of art elicited the same types of associations, but was totally different in its materiality, would it be essentially the same piece of art? (...the same 'perfect form' zipped into two different materials?) Or does the art exist primarily in the material itself, thereby nullifying the question?

It's thoughts like this that keep me up at night.


--CM